We spend our lives trying to figure out who we are, and by the end, wonder whom we might have been. Should I be a mason or a poet? Why do I worry what others think of me? Am I honorable? What if sometimes I’m not? And as the writer Lillian Hellman once suggested, why did I leave so much of me unfinished?
We have so much doubt that we cling to what we have been told who we are, by the people who...
How quaint the photograph is. It is still in my head, unforgettable.
Two men are posed, their heads lowered, one toward the other, signifying they are in urgent conversation. The older man is all jowls, the younger all sideburns.
The task they face is momentous, terrifying. They are...
Facts, as Ronald Reagan once said, are stupid things.
Ideas are even worse. Sometimes, they irk the hell out of me.
Really, officer, I was going how fast?
So I went a little over my...
Gregory Johns had allegedly committed an unimaginable and depraved act.
The Pinellas County sheriff said the 42-year-old man had raped his girlfriend’s daughter. The girl became pregnant.
She is eleven.
...
The apex of absurdity at the Republican National Convention may have been reached when Jim VandeHei, the executive editor of Politico, pointed out on MSNBC that Mitt Romney had misquoted Popeye.
Romney had been trying to say in a Politico interview that he was finally done trying to be what he’s not -- warm. “I am who I am,” the candidate said. Oops, said VandeHei. Yes, indeed. Noodling around...
Al Austin, developer, money man, and the guy who persuaded the Republicans to come to Tampa, must have one hell of a headache right now. He told the Tampa Bay Times this year that his beloved party’s convention would open the world’s eyes to Tampa.
Yes, indeed. Many of the delegates, the Occupiers, and all the sign-holders who plan to fill the streets while packing heat (since Rick...
Some days, a writer finds that her own words are mostly unnecessary, because the words of others are louder, clearer.
Consider the moment Monday when a heckler interrupted the newly-minted GOP vice-presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, during a speech at the Iowa State Fair. “Stop the war on the common good!” the man cried. He was pulled away, as Ryan’s fans chanted, “U.S.A! U.S.A!” For his part,...
In May 2011, a tornado blew through Joplin, Missouri, and flattened much of it. More than 150 people were killed.
A storm of another sort blew through Joplin early Monday. The city’s only mosque burned to the ground in the third attack on the building. In 2007, somebody burned the mosque’s sign. A security camera captured the image of a white man setting fire to the roof last month. This time,...
How much could $888,000 buy for people in need?
Let’s see: a lot of fruits and vegetables for people whose only grocery is the convenience store, more doctors’ visits for children who will get sicker without such care, or unemployment insurance for more people who will get thrown out of their homes without it.
...
Questions your six-year-old asks you:
Why does a zebra have stripes?
Can I have more macaroni and cheese?
Can you help me with my homework?
Why do I have to go to bed now?
Why did that man in the movie theatre hurt all those people?
Questions your teenager asks you:
Why do I have to do the dishes?
Are you going to buy me a car?
What? Me smoke weed?...
